letter to his lordship stating my reasons for declining to proceed, as soon as possible, but I fear I shall not have time to get it ready and a copy made in season for the present mail. I shall therefore postpone any further elucida tion of my views until the next opportunity. I do so the more readily that I am informed by Mr. Dayton that you have ceased to consider the matter as one of any urgent importance.

I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant,

Hon. WILLIAM H. SEWARD,

Secretary of State, Washington.

CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS.

FOREIGN OFFICE, August 19, 1861.

SIR: I have the honor to enclose a copy of a declaration which I propose to make upon signing the convention of which you gave me a draft embody ing the articles of the declaration of Paris.

I propose to make the declaration in question in a written form, and to furnish you with a copy of it.

You will observe that it is intended to prevent any misconception as to the nature of the engagement to be taken by her Majesty.

If you have no objection to name a day in the course of this week for the signature of the convention, Mr. Dayton can on that day, and at the same time, sign with M. Thouvenel a convention identical with that which you propose to sign with me.

I have the honor to be, with the highest consideration, sir, your most obedient, humble servant,

C. F. ADAMS, Esq., &c., &c., &c.

RUSSELL.

Draft of Declaration.

In affixing his signature to the convention of this day between her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland and the United States of America, the Earl Russell declares, by order of her Majesty, that her Majesty does not intend thereby to undertake any engagement which shall have any bearing, direct or indirect, on the internal differences now prevailing in the United States.

No. 74.]

Mr. F. W. Seward to Mr. Adams.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, August 27, 1861.

SIR: Your despatch of August 8, No. 25, has been received.

The account you have given us of the impression made by the reverse of our arms at Manassas does not surprise me. But there are to be very many fluctuations of opinion in Europe concerning our affairs before the Union will be in danger from any source.

The insurgents are exhausting themselves. We are invigorated even by disappointment. To-day the capital is beyond danger, and forces are accumulating and taking on the qualities which will render them invincible. The Union armies are preparing for movements which will, in a few weeks, remove the war from. the present frontier. The blockade is effective, and is working out the best fruits.

We do not at present depart from that policy, but we are preparing for any emergency in our foreign relations.

The sentiment of disunion is losing its expansive force, and every day it grows weaker as a physical power.

I am, sir, respectfully, your obedient servant,

F. W. SEWARD, Assistant Secretary.

CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS, Esq., &c., &c., &c.

Mr. Adams to Mr. Seward.

No. 34.]

LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES,
London, August 30, 1861.

SIR: It is not without regret that I am compelled to announce the failure of the negotiation which I am led, by the tenor of your despatches, Nos. 55 and 58, to infer you considered almost sure to succeed. I have now the honor to transmit the copy of a note addressed by me to Lord Russell on the the 23d instant, assigning the reasons why I felt it my duty to take the responsibility of declining to fix a day for signing the convention agreed upon between us, burdened, as it was to be, with a contemporaneous exposition of one of its provisions in the form of an outside declaration made by his lordship on behalf of her Majesty the Queen. I have gone so fully into the matter in that note as to render further explanation unnecessary. At the same time I take the liberty to observe that, in case the President should be of opinion that too much stress has been laid by me upon the objectionable character of that paper, an opening has been left by me for the resumption of the negotiation at any moment under new instructions modifying my views. I transmitted to Mr. Dayton a copy for his information immediately after the original was sent. I have not received any later intelligence from him; but I do not doubt that he will forward to the department by this mail his representation of the state of the corresponding negotiation at Paris, so that the whole subject will be under your eye at the same moment. From the tenor of his last note to me, I was led to infer that M. Thouvenel contemplated a parallel proceeding in the conclusion of his negotiation, and that he regarded it there very much in the same light that I did here.

From a review of the whole course of these proceedings I am led to infer the existence of some influence in the cabinet here adverse to the success of this negotiation. At the time of my last conference with Lord Russell I had every reason, from his manner, to believe that he considered the offer of the project as perfectly satisfactory. The suggestion of a qualification did not make its appearance until after the consultation with his colleagues, when it showed itself first in the enigmatical sentence of his note to me of the 31st of July, of which, in my despatch No. 22 to the department, I confessed my inability to comprehend the meaning, and afterwards in the formal announcement contained in his note of the 19th of August. That the failure of the measure, by reason of it, could not have been altogether unexpected I

infer from Mr. Dayton's report to me of M. Thouvenel's language to him, to the effect that his government would prefer to lose the negotiation rather than to omit making the exception.

Although the matter is not altogether germane to the preceding, I will not close this despatch without calling your attention to the copy of a letter of Lord John Russell to Mr. Edwardes, which I transmit as cut from a London newspaper, The Globe. It purports to have been taken from parliamentary papers just published, although I have not seen them, nor have I found it printed in any other newspaper. You will notice the date, the 14th of May, being the very day of my first visit to his lordship in company with Mr. Dallas, when he did not see us, as well as of the publication of the Queen's proclamation. I have reason to believe that the original form of that proclamation described the parties in America in much the same terms used by his Lordship, and that they were only qualified at a very late moment, and after earnest remonstrance. The tone of the letter corresponds very much with that used to me, a report of which was transmitted in my despatch No. 8.

I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant,

Hon. WILLIAM H. SEWARD,

CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS.

Secretary of State, Washington, D. C.

LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES,
London, August 23, 1861.

The undersigned, envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary of the United States, has the honor to acknowledge the reception of the note of the 19th instant, of Lord Russell, her Majesty's principal secretary of state for foreign affairs, covering the copy of a declaration which his lordship proposes to make upon signing the convention which has been agreed upon between her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, and the United States of America, embodying the articles of the declaration of Paris, and at the same time requesting him to name a day in the course of this week for the signature of the convention, in conjunction with a similar proceeding, to be arranged to take place at Paris, between Mr. Dayton and the minister of foreign affairs on the part of the French government.

The first step rendered necessary by this proposal was that the undersigned should communicate with Mr. Dayton in order to know whether a similar declaration was contemplated on the part of the Emperor of the French, and in case it was, whether Mr. Dayton was still prepared to proceed. Mr. Dayton's letter containing that information was received only yesterday, which fact, in conjunction with a brief absence of the undersigned, will account for the apparent delay in answering his lordship's note. In order perfectly to understand the position of the undersigned, it will be necessary briefly to recapitulate the particulars of this negotiation. But a few weeks after the accession of the President of the United States to office, his attention was turned to the state in which the negotiation on the subject of the four articles of the declaration of Paris had been left by his predecessor; and his disposition manifested itself to remove so far as he could the obsta cles which had been interposed in the way of completing it. To that end, among the duties with which the undersigned was charged immediately upon his arrival at his post, was an instruction at once to make overtures to her Majesty's government for a revival of the negotiation here. And, in case of the manifestation of a favorable disposition, he was further directed to

offer a project of a convention, which he was properly empowered to sign, after satisfying himself that the incorporation of the amendment which had been proposed by Mr. Marcy for the government of the United States, at a former stage of the proceedings, was not attainable.

On the eighteenth of May last, being the day of the first interview had with his lordship, the subject was only opened by the undersigned as one on which he had power to negotiate, and the disposition of her Majesty's government to proceed here was tested. It was then that he received a distinct impression from his lordship that the matter had been already committed to the care of Lord Lyons at Washington, with authority to agree with the government of the United States on the basis of the adoption of three of the articles, and the omission of the fourth altogether. Considering this to be equivalent to declining a negotiation here, and at the same time relieving him from a duty which would be better performed by his own government, the undersigned cheerfully acquiesced in this suggestion, and accordingly wrote home signifying his intention not to renew the subject unless again specifically instructed so to do.

One month passed away, when the Secretary of State of the United States, after a conference with Lord Lyons, learning that his lordship did not confirm the representation of the powers with which the undersigned had understood him to be clothed, and, so far from it, that he did not feel authorized to enter into any convention at all at Washington, directed the undersigned to inform the government in London of this fact, and to propose once more to enter into convention, if agreeable, here.

Immediately upon the receipt of these instructions, the undersigned wrote a letter on the 11th of July, as his lordship may remember, reciting these facts and renewing the question whether a proposal of negotiation at this place would be acceptable to her Majesty's government. To this letter a favorable reply was received on the 13th, and an interview took place the same day, at which, after ascertaining that the amendment desired by his government would not be successful, the undersigned had the honor to present to his lordship the project in the same form in which it had been, nearly two months before, placed in his hands, and in which it has been since accepted, and to offer a copy of his powers to negotiate. His lordship, after examining the former, remarked that he would take it for consultation with his colleagues, and in the meantime that there was no necessity for a copy of the powers.

The next step in the negotiation was the receipt, by the undersigned, of a letter from his lordship, dated the 18th of July, calling his attention to the fact that the declaration of Paris contemplated a concurrence of various powers, and not an insulated engagement of two powers only, and requiring an assurance that the United States were ready to enter into a similar engagement with France and with other maritime powers, parties to the declaration, and not with Great Britain alone. But, inasmuch as this process itself might involve the loss of much time, that her Majesty's government would deem themselves authorized to advise the Queen to conclude a convention with the President of the United States so soon as they should have been informed that a similar convention has been agreed upon between the President and the Emperor of the French.

Upon receiving this reply the undersigned, not unwilling to do everything within his power to forward an object considered by him of the greatest value, immediately opened a correspondence with Mr. Dayton, the representative of the United States at Paris, to learn from him whether such an arrangement as that contemplated in his lordship's note could not be at once carried out by him. With some reluctance Mr. Dayton consented to promote it, but only upon the production of evidence satisfactory to his own mind.

that the amendment originally proposed by Mr. Marcy was not attainable. The undersigned then addressed himself to his lordship, and with entire success. The evidence was obtained, Mr. Dayton acted with success, and no further difficulties then seemed to be in the way of a speedy and simultaneous affirmation of concurrence in the principles of the declaration of Paris by the United States, in conjunction with the other powers.

The public law thus declared to be established, embraced four general propositions, to wit:

1. Privateering is abolished.

2. The neutral flag covers enemy's goods, except contraband of war. 3. Neutral goods safe under an enemy's flag, with the same exception. 4. Blockades, to be binding, must be effective.

The government of the United States, in proposing to join in the establishment of these principles, are believed by the undersigned to be acting with the single purpose of aiding to establish a permanent doctrine for all time. Convinced of the value of it in ameliorating the horrors of warfare all over the globe, they have, perhaps against their notions of their immediate interest, consented to waive temporary considerations of expediency for the attainment of a great ultimate good. They are at last prepared to sign and seal an engagement pure and simple, and by so doing to sacrifice the hope of attaining, at least for the present, an improvement of it to which they have always attached great value. But just at the moment when their concurrence with the views of the other maritime powers of the world would seem to be certain, they are met with a proposition from one, if not more, of the parties, to accompany the act with a proceeding somewhat novel and anomalous in this case, being the presentation of a written declaration, not making a part of the convention itself, but intended to follow the signature, to the effect that "her Majesty does not intend thereby to undertake any engagement which shall have any bearing, direct or indirect, on the internal differences now prevailing in the United States."

Obviously a consent to accept a particular exception, susceptible of so wide a construction of a joint instrument, made by one of the parties to it in its own favor at the time of signing, would justify the idea that some advantage is, or may be suspected to be, intended to be taken by the other. The natural effect of such an accompaniment would seem to be to imply that the goverment of the United States might be desirous, at this time, to take a part in the declaration, not from any high purpose or durable policy, but with the view of securing some small temporary object in the unhappy struggle which is going on at home. Such an inference would spoil all the value that might be attached to the act itself. The mere toleration of it would seem to be equivalent to a confession of their own weakness. Rather than that such a record should be made, it were a thousand times better that the declaration remain unsigned forever. If the parties to the instrument are not to sign it upon terms of perfect reciprocity, with all their duties and obligations under it perfectly equal, and without equivocation or reservation of any kind, on any side, then is it plain that the proper season for such an engagement has not yet arrived. It were much wiser to put it off until nations can understand each other better.

There is another reason why the undersigned cannot at this moment consent to proceed under the powers conferred on him to complete this negotiation when clogged with such a declaration, which is drawn from the peculiar construction of the government of his own country. By the terms of the Constitution, every treaty negotiated by the President of the United States. must, before it is ratified, be submitted to the consideration of the Senate of the United States. The question immediately arises in this case, what is to be done with a declaration like that which his lordship proposes to make.